Flunking the Newsweek test

Being the editor of the news weekly (they don't like calling it that anymore) used to be one of journalism's plum jobs. It still is - as long as you're resigned to the fact that lots of people aren’t reading your stuff. Consider the frustrations of Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who took questions from grad students at Columbia journalism school and then had his own question: Did anyone in the room read Newsweek or Time. As reported by the NY Observer, "there was a small, awkward rumbling before finally, a man shouted, 'No!'"

Mr. Meacham scanned the audience for his quarry and then asked the journalism student, clad in a black turtleneck, whether he read The Economist. Yes, he did. "It's the most talked about and least read magazine," said Mr. Meacham. "Have you looked at Newsweek?" "Sure," said the J-schooler. "And it's not up to your standards?" "I find less useful honestly. The news? I don't get it from Newsweek. The Economist is more courageous," he answered.

Later, Meacham said this:

”It's an incredible frustration that I've got some of the most decent, hard-working, honest, passionate, straight-shooting, non-ideological people who just want to tell the damn truth, and how to get this past this image that we're just middlebrow, you know, a magazine that your grandparents get, or something, that's the challenge. And I just don't know how to do it, so if you've got any ideas, tell me."